The peak oil crisis: On closing our refineries
Here is one more thing for those of us who live in the northeastern U.S. to start worrying about – the refineries that make our gasoline, diesel, heating oil, etc. are dropping like flies. In today’s economy, these refineries...
Please Explain: How to Save the World—The Global Water Supply
Credit: The Leonard Lopate Show| Download We’re kicking off a series of Please Explains on how to save the world—ways to approach complex global problems such as climate change, food supply, garbage disposal, population control, and violence. Today’s topic is how...
Organics and Sustainability: Reflections on my New York Times Misquote
The phone rang as I was tying up loose ends for my last day in the office before Christmas. New York Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal wanted my thoughts on the sustainability of organic agriculture… a subject that I think...
“Sewer Mining” – Efficient Water Recycling Coming to a Community Near You
It sounds yucky at best, but mining sewage is growing in popularity, especially in Sydney, Australia, where a decade of drought forced some creative thinking about how to get, use and manage water. In 2004, when reservoir levels around...
McKibben Says Keystone Victory Only Temporary
Credit: VPR | Download When the news broke last week that President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline that would have brought oil from the Canadian tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico, many Vermont environmentalists cheered. Among those were author and...
Heinberg – Pacific NW and Canadian tour dates
Richard Heinberg is launching his Canadian tour with a webinar on Salt Spring Island, BC, January 26th from 7:00-9:30 at ArtSpring Theatre. The event will be hosted by the Transition Salt Spring and the Salt Spring Conservancy. Details. ...
With Gas so Cheap and Well Drilling Down, Why is Gas Production so High?
Natural gas prices have declined to below $3.00/mcf, levels not seen for years, yet the EIA posted the highest gas production ever in October, 2011. U.S. gas production is growing despite annual well completion rates that are half that...
Security by Design
It is commonly assumed that our national security depends only on our capacity to project military power beyond our borders and has little to do with how we organize the internal business of the country. The nation’s armed strength...
The peak oil crisis: cold fusion update
There have been enough developments in the cold fusion story during the last two weeks to warrant revisiting the subject. For those of you who came in late, cold fusion, also known as Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR), is...
Congress doesn’t know when to stop digging
: John Boehner’s got a problem — a statistical trap that’s going to take some real work to get out of. His drive to completely discredit the institution of the Congress has stalled: 9 percent of Americans still somehow...